(Over 60 diverse thinkers on how to get more from books)
D’Israeli was a British writer and scholar.
In order to receive ideas from books we must exhibit a “just taste”: an open yet critical mind, a “happy discrimination” (D’Israeli 1796, 189–190). Yet the correct aim of reading is erudition, for which taste is insufficient. To understand and remember the author’s ideas, find awakened in ourselves new sentiments, and become familiar with the author’s manner, taste must be combined with a particular mental labour (pp. 189–194).
Readers of taste read for pleasant distraction, obtaining fleeting pleasure, at best, or “tumultuous sensation” (p. 190). Such readers only desire to partake in sentiment and fantastic imagery. These transient perceptions are quickly forgotten because they aren’t formed into ideas (ibid.). These readers aren’t necessarily aware that they take this approach or its consequences: they “complain that their memory is defective, and their studies unfruitful” (p. 191). Such readers must be content to remain on the “paths of cultured pleasure grounds”; reading widely would be experienced as painful and interminable (p. 194).
This is not a criticism of reading fiction; a “professional student”, for example, will primarily read literature profitable to their career or primary interest, but diversify this with recreational reading (p. 203). Rather, D’Israeli wants us to consider the approach we take to any text, especially if we’re unable to remember or truly engage with what we read.
When we read with erudition we pair our just taste with the habitual and effortful mental exertion in an “art of combination”. We actively reason about what we read so that the ideas which arise become treasured and available to our mind “arranged as materials for reflection” (pp. 190–1). That this labour is fatiguing means that the reader “who only seeks for information, must be contented to pick it up in obscure paths, to mount rugged rocks for a few flowers, and to pass many days bewildered in dark forests, and wild deserts” (pp. 193–4). Reading for erudition requires “that phlegmatic perseverance which seems to find pleasure in mere study”; when we experience temporary disinclination to focus on our reading, we need to employ self-discipline. Commitment to this task leads to the mind assimilating the material with an awakened curiosity (pp. 193–200). Reading to learn, then, is difficult and gruelling, but unlike the reader of taste, readers of erudition find their studies fruitful.
Understanding this activity as labour suggests that reading certain books can be unnecessary labour. To study some books it can be sufficient to grasp their outline and general thrust, and examine some key passages, rather than reading them in their entirety (p. 195). Even eminent thinkers are keen index-readers because this reveals more of a book’s secrets than if they had read through the book methodically (pp. 195–6). The index lays “open the nerves and arteries of a book” (p. 196). Similarly, “the appropriation of posterity” may lay open the oeuvres of celebrated authors because “the best writers, when they are voluminous, have a great deal of mediocrity”: by waiting for critical opinion to settle on an author we can avoid their less important work (pp. 197–8).
Valuable truths are contained in both old and new books, so it’s a mistake to read only one kind to the exclusion of the other (p. 207). We’re also wrong to read the author instead of the book because in this way even the “most ingenious author may be injured by the most impertinent reader”: we suffer if we avoid a book purely because of our acquaintance with the author (ibid.).
A critical judgement of a book should be suspended until well after our first reading because, as with wine, “the first glass is insufficient to decide on its quality” (p. 201). We must savour and reflect before we judge. For a book to please a reader requires effort on behalf of the reader as well as the author. Not only must we employ just taste and active reasoning but bring our “literary appetite”—“which the author can no more impart, than the most skilful cook can give an appetency to the guests” (p. 198). Otherwise, our mood or “infirm dispositions” may lead us to judge the book unfavourably (p. 199).
By focusing on mental labour, D’Israeli describes how the reader must bring to their author certain qualities in order to both understand and remember the work, but also fairly judge it. If we shirk this labour we must realise that we will only obtain temporary enjoyment, and form few memories, of what we read.